Disclaimer: I do not own Thirteen Ghosts, characters, places, etc. All rights belong to Dark Castle Entertainment, Warner Brothers, and their respective owners.
In Pieces
Summary: There were eleven choices. Eleven out of twelve who could follow her. Thirteen years after the glass house, a wiser Kathy Kriticos inevitably finds herself caught in a dangerous game of cat and mouse, where an unlikely acquaintance is the only one who can save her. Kathy/?
Chapter One
October 26th, 2013
Helena, Montana
Thirteen years later
…
The misery I know
Like a friend that won't let go
Is creeping up on me now once again
So I sing this song tonight
To the ghost that will not die
And somehow it seems to haunt me till the end
Do you feel the same
For what was remained
Yesterday is gone, we can't go back again
Do you ever cry for the ghost of days gone by
I remember summer days
We were young and unafraid
With innocence we'd glide beneath the stars
It seems so long ago
Beyond the life that I now know
Before the years would have their way and break my heart
Do you feel the same
For what was remained
Yesterday is gone, we can't go back again
Do you ever cry for the ghost of days gone by
And I know it's drawing closer
With each day I feel the end
I, don't wanna die
Don't wanna die, don't wanna die
I don't wanna die
Do you feel the same
For what was remained
Yesterday is gone, we can't go back again
Do you ever cry for the days gone by
Do they haunt you like a ghost until the end
Haunt you till the end, until the end
Until the end, until the end…
"Ghost of Days Gone By" – Alter Bridge
…
"Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character." – Heraclitus
…
"Okay, Tom, just tell Mr. Harrison that everything will go smoothly with the transaction between Community Trust and Montana First Financial next week," Kathy said as she pulled into the gravel driveway of her home, just outside of the city. She heard an exasperated sigh on the other end of her Bluetooth as she placed her hunter-green Toyota Highlander into park.
"If you're sure," she heard on the other end of the connection. "You know how Maxwell gets when he thinks someone will have second thoughts and pull out at the last minute. God, I wish you were still here at the office. You're about the only one who can talk him out of jumping from the edge of a cliff."
Kathy visibly grimaced at the comment. In a way, it was true, but still…
"Look, Tom, no one is going to be jumping from any cliffs—either literally or figuratively—anytime soon. The merger will go through in three weeks. The Recession is pretty much over, and we still have jobs to our names, right? Yes. So, stop worrying about next week. Otherwise, I'm going to have to walk two people away from a cliff," she emphasized with a half-joking laugh.
Hearing a sigh on the other end, she said her good-byes and hung up as she issued her own exhausted sigh. Today had been nothing but a long line of negotiations and making deals behind the scenes. It hadn't been bad, per se, but it had been no less tiring and frustrating for the banks' executives to agree and seal the deal of a potential merger, now made inevitable.
"I think a bubble bath and a glass of champagne are in order for the evening," she muttered quietly to herself, and then glanced at the brown paper bag which contained a bottle of Korbel Brut champagne.
It had been a while since she celebrated like this—completely by herself and enjoying a quiet evening away from her colleagues and work—as she would finally relax and breathe in the cold Montana air from her hot tub.
Thinking back briefly on the many rounds of congratulations and the need for people to join together and laugh and chat over drinks, she questioned whether she should've accepted the invitation to go out for a drink. She often joined them, but she made an exception for herself tonight.
After all, tonight…was…
Turning off the ignition, she dismissed the thought. There was no point in having a private celebration if she was going to spend it miserably.
"Kathy, my girl," she said to herself as she glanced once again at the concealed champagne, "You are going to party tonight."
A soft wind met her proclamation, brushing against her cold cheeks, and she smiled, finding a sense of comfort in it.
After all, she had no boyfriend, let alone a family on this side of the States. Her father and brother—who was currently away at college—were living in a small town in Vermont, while the few friends she had were either still in Seattle—where she had spent her college days—or scattered living in their cozy Philadelphian suburban homes.
It wasn't the most ideal life, to be thirty-two and single, but there were worse ways to make a living.
While many women in her position would probably despair over the idea of spending their days, alone and isolated, their youth and marriage prospects dwindling with each subsequent year, she had come to appreciate life—whatever it handed her—just so long as she saw another day—warm, breathing, and alive.
She shook her head at the thought as she opened her door as she made her way into a warm and, mercifully, quiet house. She briefly took in her surroundings of snow, stone, and pine. The house had a century and ten on it, built as it was at the turn of the century.
The price hadn't been too demanding; the down payment she'd made on it was a quarter of the asking price. Naturally, she had to renovate two out of three of its bedrooms and install new plumbing throughout. The kitchen had to be gutted and rewired for new lighting. She had also knocked out a wall for an adjoining dining room.
Overall, she'd spent a year's salary on remodeling her home. Nevertheless, it was a sturdy structure of cobblestone and timber—and well worth the price. It felt like a home—her home.
As she opened the door, she stamped her snow encrusted boots on the rubber mat next to it before removing them completely. A tingling sensation radiated from her hands as she adjusted to the warmth her home calmly emitted.
A dip in the hot tub would soon be in order. Afterward, she would set a fire and read next to it as she enjoyed the last of the champagne.
"I really need to begin Gone Girl," she said to no one in particular, glancing at the thriller on a nearby side table. She'd read the rest of Flynn's novels and desired to continue with what would be another intriguing story. After all, it certainly beats out that bondage series. But then, I do have Dr. Sleep.
Kathy sighed, remembering the book she'd ordered—the one still in its Amazon packaging. While she was far from a horror fan, she had read The Shining her freshman year of high school and loved it.
Now, seventeen years later, her book club had sent her the sequel before she even realized what it was. She'd considered reading it, but a sequel that focused on an older Danny Torrance—one, who'd survived the traumatizing events of a fateful winter's night with a murderous father in an isolated hotel—hit a little too close to home.
Maybe she would read it later—at a beach in California, perhaps.
The voice in the back of her mind seemed appeased by the consideration as she continued into the kitchen. She mechanically set her purse on the table and set the champagne in the fridge. Taking a swift glance at the contents of the fridge, she groaned.
"Really? I've had chili for most of this week." She hesitated for a moment, staring grimly at the refrigerator. She received a continuous hum from the fridge in response as she mulled over the possibilities of a quiet evening alone. "I don't want pizza, and I've just had enchiladas. Chinese was recent—like last Saturday recent. Crap. I'm burned out on sushi, too. Oh, what to have tonight? This is supposed to be a special occasion."
She closed the door and stared at the daily quote she'd fashioned from a jumble of magnetic words. Today's had been about patience: Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character. – Heraclitus
She recited the quote, as was her custom when agitated, and decompressed the stressors her work had impelled. For now, she considered what she desired most out of her evening.
Thinking about dinner, she caught something out of the corner of her eye falling from the edge of the kitchen countertop. She warily moved toward it and frowned, meeting with a phonebook, its contents open for all to see.
"Strange," she remarked before curiously picking it up. She looked at the pages—a copious list of restaurants of various names and hours—and, wait, a moment…
Steffano's.
"I've not had anything from there in ages," she remarked happily to herself, half-shaking her head in wonder as she thought of the phonebook falling from the countertop in the first place. Perhaps she had set it too close to the edge? She hadn't thought so, but then everything had been a blur, with the banking merger and Tom's relentless phone calls and panic attacks.
Two weeks of sheer insanity, she thought dismally.
As such, she had doubtlessly bumped something as innocuous as a phonebook one morning in a rush to get to work.
Either way, it had been a fortunate coincidence since she intended to make well on her folly and call in for some Italian. She pulled out her iPhone from her purse and dialed a number. The vaguely familiar voice of the restaurant's greeting chimed in her ear.
"Yes, I'd like to place an order for a meatball sub with parmesan, a garden salad with French dressing, and a side of plain chips. Yes. It's Kathy Kriticos on the South End. Yes. Thirty minutes? Yes, that'll be fine. Perfect! Thank you," she chirped before ending the call.
She then pressed the call button again, and stared at the long list of calls she'd missed. Almost everything was business before her conversation with Tom—most of the calls were from him, anyway—and so she resolved to call the others the following Monday. Everyone at the bank was already gone for the day, save for Tom.
However, she noted one phone call that caught her attention.
Dad.
A tired smile rested at the corners of her mouth. It had been a couple of weeks since she'd last checked in with him. Conversations with her younger brother, Bobby, were of an even less occurrence since his admittance into graduate school. Somehow, her little brother—a decade younger than she—had received a full scholarship to Johns Hopkins University.
Her father had been beyond ecstatic—the reality that one of his children would attend such a prestigious university. Kathy, however, while happy and proud of her little brother, was far from surprised at the scholarship. After all, Bobby never flinched from anything dealing with the human body. His peculiar fascination with death had stemmed into a thorough study of human life and how to preserve it.
"Kathy, after I graduate from high school, I'm going to go to a good college and become a brain surgeon," she recalled a younger version of her brother—a gangly thirteen-year-old, who boasted a foray of pimples and a crooked grin—admitting, as he already knew his path in life. He wanted to make a difference in the world, as he would focus on life instead of death.
After all, he'd spent too many nights with waking nightmares of that…place.
Naturally, Kathy had encouraged him, given that he poured through every medical textbook and journal the local library possessed. He'd even asked to read her biology book, offering to help her with work from her college class. She'd almost taken him up on it, as the inner workings of the human body, cells, and microbes weren't her thing.
Her alma mater, the University of Washington, was a far cry from the med school her brother attended; for while he learned the ins and outs of the human body, she focused her attention on commerce, having instead graduated from business school.
She initially worked in Seattle, just after graduating. Her father had wanted her to move closer to home—well, what he now deemed home in Vermont—for work, but Kathy was reluctant to leave everything that presented a semblance of normalcy. She felt a little guilty, especially since her father and brother were disappointed, but she had to do what was best for her mental state. She never told them about the nightmares she still had. Nor did she impart to them the disgust she felt every time she looked in the mirror.
Absently, she traced the lines carved in her cheeks and neck. Like her father, the scars left from that night hadn't been superficial. Both had been attacked by the same ghost; however, the injuries inflicted on her had been more intentional, as if her attacker had pleasured himself in a primal sense of stripping her of her beauty and innocence.
She'd felt absolutely violated by him. Having earned the crude moniker of "Scarface" from a few drunken frat boys, which spread like wildfire at college, she'd never truly gotten past that night.
Yuh still beautiful, sweethaht, the familiar voice of her conscience echoed with its foreign intonation. Kathy could only pause for a moment and smile. Sweethaht. It had indeed been a sweet addition to her conscience's vocabulary, compared to the nickname she'd received.
For years, she'd balked at such a hurtful label. But when she'd accepted it, it'd somehow become a part of her. After her junior year in college, she simply wanted to love someone who would deem her beautiful…
Her conscience seemed to again thrive in her open acceptance of its words. When will it evah be true faw ya, to finally see it? Not only aw ya that, but yuz a true dame who'd make any fella fall faw ya. Why, even the stahs shine in yuh eyes, sweethaht.
She smiled, half-heartedly wanting to believe, but remembering how her appearance had lessened the interests of those who proposed a date with her. Powder and concealer could do little for the deep white lines that traced her face and neck.
At first, she had tried to hide them with layers of concealer masked by her hair, but soon gave up when she saw people staring at her in class, on the street, and even among the distant relatives who would sometimes visit for family functions.
Most were polite to her and tried not to stare, but few could manage looking beyond them. The scars had been a burden to bear, an obstruction that prevented her from truly enjoying her college years.
Even now, she noticed her colleagues—most of whom she had known for several years—were still unable to resist the urge to stare.
It's just as well, she figured, as she considered everything she'd done since leaving her life in Pennsylvania behind. She'd attended concerts and enjoyed everything campus life had to offer, which wasn't as much as she would've liked. Though unlike high school, she'd acquired only a handful of friends, and even fewer boyfriends in college.
Those who looked past the scars had either been desperate to date her or…
She inwardly grimaced.
There was no need to think about that particular incident. It was bad enough that the police had to involve her dad, who naturally panicked.
Nothing had happened.
She'd survived with only the slightest effects from a date rape drug and the mental scars of never taking accepting a spiked drink from someone again. And yet her conscience, ever the faithful font of wisdom it was, urged her to run from her boyfriend's dorm, to lock herself in one of the women's bathrooms, and vomit up the drug.
It didn't matter how her former boyfriend threatened to break down the door when she refused to unlock it, let alone fear the commotion he caused when he screamed out obscenities about her scarred face before fighting off his own drug-induced panic of something following him. He'd been promptly handcuffed and carted off by campus police who believed that one Mark Bryant was clearly out of his mind and tripping on Ecstasy.
Kathy could barely register anything, dazed as she was by the date rape drug he'd administered to her. She could hardly fathom where she was, let alone acknowledge her new ex's claims that something was following him, threatening him bodily harm. He claimed that something was in pieces in his report. Kathy, naturally, trashed her copy when the case was closed, an EPO served and a permanent suspension from the university given to her attacker.
He never troubled her again.
Nevertheless, she hadn't dated anyone seriously after that event; and while she now went on the casual one-time date, simply to appease her friend Shanna at work, she felt disinclined to pursue anything further. Even Arthur, who wished she would find someone, had been reluctant to broach the subject with her, despite the fact the incident had happened ten years ago.
She'd become a self-made woman, wholly independent of ever needing a man.
And, as of now, she intended to keep it that way. She wasn't in any rush to settle down and have a family. She'd already had one of those and lost it. Why have one of her own, only for it to be taken away in a similar manner as she'd lost her mother?
Best not to take that chance again, she mused, feeling the stirrings of her protesting conscience. She quelled it instantly and dialed her father's number.
After a few rings, someone picked up, a soft, middle-aged voice of a man answering. Kathy beamed instantly. "Dad, hey, it's me," she greeted; and, for the first time today, actually felt herself relax. "Sorry, I haven't called in a while; I've been busy with a bank merger, and it's going to be crazy for the next few weeks…"
Their conversation lasted for over an hour. Both caught up on the goings on of each other as half of their conversation focused on Bobby and his classes. Kathy learned from Arthur that Bobby had gotten serious with his girlfriend, Amy, who was a nurse at a local hospital in Baltimore. Neither doubted that he would eventually pop the question, although Arthur hoped that Bobby would wait until after finishing graduate school.
As for Arthur himself, he was still a math teacher. Having never remarried, he intended to stave off retirement for as long as possible. He even went so far as to muse that the administration would be digging his grave before he retired, having now been the Math Department Chair for over nine years and winning Teacher of the Year for a consecutive three.
Indeed, Arthur Kriticos wasn't quite ready to pursue a leisurely life of fishing and reading all of the novels from his own college days just yet.
For now, her father was living comfortably in a house that he had finally paid off, the debts from another life wiped clean by what little remained from the Kriticos family fortune. For while Arthur never actually signed for his uncle's house, the property and destroyed contents thereof went to the county to be properly disposed of and sold. The leftover money had been enough to start a new life far away from Willow Grove.
The authorities who found Cyrus Kriticos' dismembered remains deduced the man had faked his own death, and somehow met his demise in an explosion, brought on by the strange machinery in the house. The other three bodies found were also believed to have also been caused by the house. They had only questioned Arthur and his family about their knowledge of who Cyrus Kriticos was, as it was a case closed soon after.
No one from what remained of the Kriticos family ever questioned Arthur or his family about it, preferring instead to forget about Cyrus entirely. Cyrus had always been a black stain to the Kriticos name. He soon became nothing more than an afterthought before being almost entirely forgotten.
Arthur never spoke of the house, although he would share fond memories of his beloved wife with anyone who would indulge an old man with his momentary happiness in remembering the love of his life. He never considered finding love again, even though Kathy and Bobby had assured him that they wouldn't mind if he found someone who loved him. Their father would, naturally, shake his head and say that he was happy, and was reassured that he would see their mother again.
It was enough for him; and, for his children, it, too, was enough.
By the end of the conversation, Kathy promised to fly in for Thanksgiving, jokingly declaring that wild horses couldn't keep her from visiting. She heard him laugh, and it heartened her to hear it.
Saying their goodbyes, Kathy glanced at the takeout on the coffee table, which had arrived during her phone call. She looked at it, famished. Having only salad and little else for lunch, tonight would be a feast, accompanied by some champagne.
Thinking once again about her book selection, she opted for her psychological thriller and began to read as she ate. After all, reading about a woman who was undoubtedly troubled by the breakdown of her marriage, her disappearance, and possible murder appealed more to Kathy, instead of an evening of having potential nightmares with a troubled Danny Torrance who apparently shared the same temptation in drowning them out by finding his answer at the end of a bottle.
She'd read the prologue online, and imagined it had a dismal conclusion. It was part of the reason she'd gotten the champagne, if only to forget things for one evening. Her private celebration had been a convenient excuse.
She ignored the voice of her conscience nagging at the back of her mind.
No.
She wouldn't indulge in its wisdom tonight. She wasn't an alcoholic, but she needed something to silence the static in her mind. Nothing hard. Just champagne. She'd seen what monsters could erupt from drugs and liquor.
It was half past eleven when, after enjoying herself in the hot tub with a few glasses, and then reading a few more chapters of her book, collapsed into bed. Drifting off soundly to a wine-induced sleep, she failed to hear the slight pounding of fists on the floor in the hallway outside. Nor did she hear the agonized wail of something akin to sadness as she dreamt of everything and nothing, all the while ignorant of the storm that quietly raged from her conscience without.
After all, it was thirteen years to the moment when her fate collided with that of a faceless entity who had watched over her since, a distant shadow that lingered in the background of her thoughts—a shadow, while remaining nameless, who adored every transient moment that passed with her—as it continued to watch her, both ceaselessly and most devotedly…until the end of her life.
…
Author's Note: Thanks to everyone reading this in an otherwise ghostly archive. It's truly therapy for the spectral imaginings as one lost in finding good ghost stories.
A confession: most of these chapters will vary in length, but most will probably be shorter than my usual fare. I'm really just writing for the pleasure of writing this story.
Heraclitus of Ephesus was a 5th/6th Century Greek philosopher and is known for coining the term Logos. He predates Socrates, but his philosophy is still studied today.
Steffano's is an actual Italian restaurant in Helena, Montana. I haven't eaten there myself, but the menu is absolutely mouthwatering.
I have the next chapter written; I just need to proofread before posting. Hope everyone is enjoying the story thus far! We shall soon see who is Kathy's beloved "conscience" presently!
Until then!
— Kittie